Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Warehouse 13: Season 4, Episode 3: Personal Effects

Ok, everyone’s alive, the warehouse is rebuilt, Lena is
shelving the Artefacts, Jinks is getting his stuff from the Dead Agents storage
and Pete is complaining about the lack of hot water with 5 people living in the
B&B (what happened to the HG Wells anyway?) – in short, it’s business as
usual.

And they have a ping, an Artefact that causes spider
venom poisoning without actually having people bitten by a spider. It’s an
artefact that Jinks recognises from his time undercover with Sykes, part of his
arsenal – but the arsenal disappeared after Sykes died

The woman who has been bitten was a cleaner and one of her jobs was to clean a
house that belonged to the man who illustrated Pinocchio – and since Sykes was obsessed
with the writer of the book (since the bracelet allowed him to walk) it’s a
good place to start looking. Carefully.

Looking round the house, they find photographs with
default pictures in them and even plastic food – pointing to the house as being
for show. They do find the biting spider artefact – and lots of empty crates
were the other artefacts were.

Next clue – the building had an alarm so time to go to
the security company to see if someone broke in, or had the code. Turns out all
their fear of conspiracy actually come down to an inept security employee
giving out the code to his friend so he could steal the stuff, pawn it and
split the money. To the pawn shop! That then blows up (but like the pop-culture
reference to the History Channels love of pawn shows). Warned by a “vibe” from
Pete they’re ok – but more investigation is now needed.

And they even let Leena out! In the field! Out of her
plot box! Because Leena has the psychic ability to tell how an Artefact should
be stored without it becoming dangerous, she’s the ideal person to sort through
the stack and make sure another explosion doesn’t happen. But 6 Artefacts have
already been sold – as well as a pipe the original thief kept.

Time for them to split up (Jinks and Claudia, Artie and
Leena, Myka and Pete). A pair of invisibility sunglasses, Napolean’s violin,
some anger-inducing golf clubs and a bird cage that summons murderous birds.
Nicely standard snatch and grabs – almost. Artie’s touching the raging golf
club leads him to rant about how he sacrificed for everyone, that he saw all he
loved die and he can’t even tell anyone. Which, naturally, rather surprises
Leena.

Myka and Pete have the pipe to track down - only it’s
held by a thief and he’s using its ability to summon storms to rob a bank.
Checking with his mother, they discover their house is being foreclosed by the
bank he robbed.

Since it causes storms, they can track it using weather
radars, which results in them having a armoured car almost dropped on them. But
they do notice that the thief, Jesse, has a bandage which, when they put it
together with the medical book in his flat, they assume means he needs medical
attention – which would also explain why he says he’s “running out of time”.

Checking the medical records they find he’s actually
giving blood to his hospitalised little brother, Ronnie, and that’s part of the
reason why they’re drowning in bills. Jesse is throwing money at the hospital
administrator to get them to operate on Ronnie and save him – but they don’t
have a donor.

On the roof, Jesse delivers his ultimatum. The hospital
has an hour to start fixing Ronnie or he reduces the hospital to rubble. Using
the invisibility glasses they manage to take the pipe off him, dispelling the
storm. He asks why they can’t heal his brother and they tell him – they don’t
have a compatible heart.

Hearing this, he grabs the pipe and strikes himself with lightning – his heart
is compatible. He sacrifices himself for his brother

In the aftermath we also confirm at least one of the
downsides of Jink’smetronome – and damage
he takes, Claudia feels.

And Artie talks to an unknown person to try and find the
knife he keeps having visions about – visions of Claudia killing him.

This episode was a pretty standard snag and grab, but I
think after the drama of the last 2 episodes as well as season 3, I think we
needed this. A return to “normality” was just what was required to ground the
series. It allowed us to see their interactions a little more (which I love),
remind us of their normal operating state, a return to business as usual

Ok the shop assistant’s comments
when Jinks revealed he was gay? I don’t know if the show’s trying to present
endless microagressions, but that could be a positive spin on this unending joke we have. The one thing that stops me completely calling foul on this always happening is because each time it does happen Jinks is obviously uncomfortable and unhappy with the situation.

I did kind of like Artie snarking about how he and Leena
didn’t fit in at an exclusive country club – it was a nod. And Leena was
allowed out of her plot box – may this be a sign of things to come!